This move isn't exactly unexpected. When Google first announced its decision to buy Motorola Mobility back in August, 2011, Business Insider noted that Motorola Mobility's huge staff of 19,000 represented 60% of Google's total employees at the time.

Still, the layoffs represent Google's first big change to Motorola Mobility's business since Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of the company was approved earlier this year.

Dennis Woodside, Motorola Mobility's current CEO, told the New York Times that the move is part of a plan to focus the manufacturer's energies on a few cellphones and abandon the many low-end devices it has been producing for years.